A Science Fictionanthology show, created by Leslie Stevens, although producer Joseph Stefano did more to set the series' avant garde tone. Its original version, which aired on ABC between September 1963 and January 1965, was often a worthy competitor to The Twilight Zone.

The Outer Limits was often somewhat dark in tone, and it was also unusually arty and thought-provoking for an early 60s TV series, complete with poetic dialogue, unusual camera angles, a lush orchestral soundtrack by Dominic Frontiere, and chiaroscuro cinematography (often provided by future Oscar winner Conrad Hall). The show featured some truly brilliant writing by the likes of Stefano, Robert Towne, Anthony Lawrence and Meyer Dolinsky. And then there was the show's main selling point—the Monsters Of The Week and other special effects, which were all the more impressive for being created on a weekly TV schedule and budget.

Although ABC commissioned The Outer Limits to cash in on the late 50s/early 60s monster boom, the network never really understood it. When ABC announced that during the series' second season in 1964, it would be moved to a suicidal Saturday night time slot against The Jackie Gleason Show, Stevens, Stefano and much of their production team left in protest. The network replaced them with a new team headed by Perry Mason vet Ben Brady, who tried to save the series by making it (somewhat) less artsy and more commercial. ABC didn't help matters by reducing the series' already low production budget. Despite this, the second season produced several memorable episodes (most notably Harlan Ellison's two scripts, "Soldier" and "Demon With A Glass Hand", and the two-part "The Inheritors"), but it did no good. After a few months of predictably bad ratings, ABC canceled The Outer Limits in the middle of the season, after only 49 episodes.

However, that wasn't quite the end. Despite its status as a short-lived, black and white anthology series, The Outer Limits remained popular enough to stay in constant syndication for nearly four decades. This resulted in a made-for-cable revival series helmed by producer Pen Densham, which far outlasted the original, beginning its seven-season run in 1995. A few of the new series' episodes were even remakes of episodes from the original series.

Tropes:

Adam Link: The story was adapted by both versions of the show, under the title "I, Robot". Leonard Nimoy appeared in both, as different characters.

Added Alliterative Appeal: Joseph Stefano loved this trope. His scripts are full of phrases such as "this virile, violent inevitability" ("The Invisibles") and "mad mechanical magics" ("Fun and Games").

After the End: In "The Man Who Was Never Born", a present day astronaut goes through a "time convulsion" and winds up in 2148, where an accidental Synthetic Plague has devastated humanity, with only a few mutants left. The plot centers around the characters trying to return to the present and prevent this.

Aliens Speaking English: A frequent trope in both series, understandably enough. Given a variety of handwaves, some of which are more plausible than others. "The Zanti Misfits" is the only episode where the aliens don't speak English.

All There in the Script: The name of Aabel, the alien from "The Children of Spider County". His name is never shown or spoken in the episode.

Becoming the Mask: "The Chameleon" features a human spy who is turned into an alien to infiltrate a crashed spaceship. He adapts well to his transformation...so well that he abandons his empty life and goes into space to live on the aliens' world.

Big Brother Is Watching: The titular device in "O.B.I.T." is a highly advanced surveillance machine that is used to spy on the scientists at a research station, leading to an atmosphere of pervasive paranoia.

Big "NO!": One of the aliens in "The Chameleon" does this when the human spy kills the other alien.

Bittersweet Ending: Several episodes end with the protagonists saving the world, but they (and/or their loved ones) pay dearly for it in the process. Examples:"The Architects of Fear", "The Man Who Was Never Born", "Corpus Earthling", "ZZZZZ", "The Guests", "A Feasibility Study", "Demon with a Glass Hand" and "'I, Robot'".

Bottle Episode: "Controlled Experiment" (from the first season) and "The Probe" (the very last episode) were both written to be filmed cheaply when the producers were trying to control the series' budget.

Brain in a Jar: The plot of "The Brain of Colonel Barham", in which a terminally ill astronaut's brain is preserved so it can control a space probe to Mars.

Cloning Blues: A major plot point in "The Duplicate Man". Space anthropologist Henderson James has himself "duplicated" so the clone can hunt an alien monster that James let escape. While the clone accumulates the real James' memories, James' wife discovers that she prefers the clone because her husband has become a cynical Jerkass and the innocent clone reminds her of his younger self.

Conspicuous Gloves: In "Demon with a Glass Hand", Trent (the man with the glass hand) wears a glove over it, only removing it to speak to it or add a finger as he finds them.

Cryptic Background Reference: In Joseph Stefano's scripts, characters sometimes make fleeting references to their pasts that are never explained.

Dark Is Not Evil: The Ebonites in "Nightmare". Their sinister appearance, including gargoyle-like faces and bat wings, belies that it's the human generals who command them to torture and interrogate their prisoners.

Decoy Protagonist: Joseph Reardon in "The Man Who Was Never Born." He's primarily focused on for the first ten minutes, then after he gets Ret Goned Andro (played by Martin Landau) serves as the true protagonist of the episode.

Does Not Wear Shoes: The perpetually barefoot Mrs. Dame in "The Bellero Shield". The episode has several lengthy closeups of her bare feet.

Driven to Suicide: At the climax of "The Man with the Power", Harold Finley, who has gained deadly new mental powers that he can't consciously control, declares that "If I have this power, then I don't want to live" and turns it on himself.

Energy Beings: Featured in "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork" and "Counterweight".

Episode Title Card: Very distinctive; the episode title, and the names of the episode's stars, come right at the viewer, accompanied by the sine wave and (after the first few episodes) the piercing electronic whine from the Title Sequence.

Evil Teacher: Mr. Zeno in "The Special One" is actually from planet Xenon, and he influences child prodigies to help his homeworld with their Alien Invasion. (He also murders the father of one pupil for asking too many questions.) However...

Fake Defector: Kenny Benjamin, Zeno's latest pupil, was only pretending to cooperate, and he saves the day by turning the alien's own weapon against him.

Free Sample Plot Coupon: In "Demon with a Glass Hand", the character Trent must find the three missing fingers of his artificial left hand to save humanity from the Kyben invasion. Fortunately Trent's incomplete left hand is a talking computer that can help him find the three fingers.

Frogs and Toads: They're possessed by a disembodied alien in "Cry of Silence".

Genghis Gambit: The plot of "The Architects of Fear"; a group of scientists turn one of their own into a terrifying fake alien so he can threaten an Alien Invasion and thus unite the nations of Earth.

Insect Queen: "ZZZZZ". A giant mutant queen bee takes human form so she can mate with a human male. She can control her fellow bees and make them attack people, such as the wife of the man she wants to seduce.

Jekyll & Hyde: In "Expanding Human", a mind-enhancing drug transforms one of its researchers physically and mentally, turning him back and forth between his normal self and a super-strong, super-intelligent alter ego who wants to Take Over the World and convert or destroy the rest of humanity.

Jerkass: The bad-tempered, self-pitying title character in "The Brain of Colonel Barham". Yes, he's terminally ill, but the episode makes it clear that he was a jerk even when he was healthy.

To be fair, both versions of the show do have the occasional episode with a happy ending.

Mechanistic Alien Culture: Many episodes of the classic sci-fi anthology featured aliens with ambiguously robotic characteristics.

Mildly Military: TOS episode "The Invisible Enemy". The officers in the second mission repeatedly disobey orders and get each other killed.

Mind Control: "The Brain of Colonel Barham" (from the episode of the same name) somehow gains this power.

Also, in "The Special One" Mr. Zeno can control the bodies of his victims, while their minds remain free. A nice power to have when you're an alien invader who sadistically delights in forcing the humans who discover your plot to commit suicide against their will...

Monster of the Week: One of the series' central tropes, but there are several episodes that twist or outright eschew the formula:

"The Man Who Was Never Born" turns the formula on it's head by having the monster (Andros, a deformed mutant from a far flung Bad Future) be the protagonist, who seeks to undue the very future he was from.

"The Hundred Days of the Dragon" is centered around a Chinese government operative who uses a special drug that can shape shift his face, but no monster is present or implied.

"The Borderland" has no monster to speak of; the episode is set around a machine that can reach into another dimension.

"Controlled Experiment" likewise has no "monster", with the central characters being two martians with completely human appearances and a time control device on hand, and they aren't evil.

"The Inheritors" has no monster in either part of the episode.

"The Form of Things Unknown" is another episode with no monster, but a science fiction element (namely, a Time Tilter device).

Poor Communication Kills: In his Outer Limits Companion, David J. Schow identifies this as a plot flaw in two TOS episodes, "The Mice" and "Second Chance". He notes that both episodes feature "a lone alien on a mission that is terminated because the aliens do not bother to ask for what they want."

Poorly Disguised Pilot: There were two versions of "The Forms of Things Unknown"; one was intended as a pilot for The Unknown, a straight suspense anthology that wasn't picked up. The Point of Divergence : In "Forms", the "Time Tilter" actually works, while in The Unknown it doesn't.

Power Incontinence: In "The Man With the Power", Milquetoast scientist Harold Finley invents a "link-gate" that gives him mild mental powers. However, the device causes his subconscious resentments to manifest as an energy cloud that zaps his enemies without his knowledge.

Psychic Static: Used by a man to protect his thoughts from the title character in "The Mutant".

Really Was Born Yesterday: In "Demon with a Glass Hand", Trent initially thinks he's "A full grown man, born ten days ago." He's wrong on both counts.

Recycled Soundtrack: Some of Dominic Frontiere's music came from Stoney Burke, an earlier Leslie Stevens series. Later, some of his Outer Limits scores were used in The Fugitive (especially the fourth season), The Rat Patrol and The Invaders (including the theme music, which was originally composed for The Unknown).

Sand Is Water: "The Invisible Enemy" had a sand ocean complete with tides and several giant monsters swimming in it.

Science Is Bad: A recurrent theme and the basis for the plots of many (though not all) of its episodes.

Notably averted in the episode "Behold, Eck" where not only is the scientist character the hero, but his invention ultimately saves the day (and the alien, who just wanted to go home).

Secret Test: In "Nightmare" a group of soldiers invading the planet Ebon are captured and tortured for information by the Ebonites. They eventually learn that the situation is a set-up by their own superiors to test their ability to resist interrogation, with the cooperation of the Ebonites (who eventually protest the unethical nature of the test).

Send in the Search Team: The plot of "The Invisible Enemy". The protagonists are sent to Mars to learn why the astronauts from the first expedition disappeared.

Show Accuracy/Trading Card Accuracy: The original TOS Outer Limitscards (one of which is the page pic), released while the series was still in production, are notorious because the writer, who couldn't use the series' actual plots due to licensing issues, concocted new stories (and laughable ones, at that) around colorized photos of the Aliens and Monsters. Later series of cards didn't have this problem; one series recycled the original pics with new text including both the TV and trading card plots.

Spoiler Title: "The Probe", considering that the story is about a group of plane crash survivors who wind up on an alien space probe—without either the characters or the audience initially realizing it— and spend about half the episode trying to figure out where they are.

Star-Crossed Lovers: Andro and Noelle in "The Man Who Was Never Born". Their time tampering saves the world, but Andro's existence is erased in the process.

Stock Footage: Used from time to time in the original series. Some spaceship shots come from earlier science fiction films and series. "The Premonition" starts with footage of an actual X-15 flight; it also includes scenes of a coyote chasing a rabbit through the desert and a hawk attacking its prey, which were taken from Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

Stop Motion: Used to animate the aliens in "The Zanti Misfits" and "Counterweight".

"The Man Who Was Never Born" starts with a 1963 astronaut going through a "time convulsion" and ending up in the Bad Future of 2148. Andro makes the trip in the opposite direction.

"Soldier" begins with another accidental example, as Qarlo and The Enemy are somehow sent from the distant future to 1964 via "a crossfire of death beams".

Finally, an intentional example! In "Demon with a Glass Hand", both Trent and his enemies the Kyben use a "Time Mirror" to travel from the future to the present. However, they'll die if they try to return to their own time.

Wait Here: "Demon with a Glass Hand". Trent has Consuelo climb out onto a window ledge outside the building so she'll be safe from the Kyben.

Waking Up at the Morgue: Happens to a college professor who's been experimenting with a mind-enhancing drug in "Expanding Human".

Walk Through The Camera: Trent does this twice during "Demon with a Glass Hand". Wade Norton does it in "The Guests".

Warrior Poet: Major Jong in "Nightmare", who recites Haiku while the aliens are torturing him.

"What Now?" Ending: "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork". The deadly energy monster is confined again, but as a policeman notes, "It's under control—for the moment". No one knows how (or if) it can be destroyed, or how else to deal with it.

X-Ray Sparks: Seen at the climax of "The Borderland" when a character jumps into the dimensional travel machine. His skeleton shows through his body as he's obliterated.

Year Inside, Hour Outside: A plot element in "Don't Open Till Doomsday" and "The Guests". Both episodes feature human characters trapped in an alien-controlled environment where they don't age because time doesn't pass.

Yellow Peril: The Red Chinese are the villains in "The Hundred Days of the Dragon".

You Look Familiar: Many instances, but most notably with Robert Culp, who starred in three episodes.

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